Before you start putting videos online, you have to set up a YouTube channel. Here are a few simple SEO tips:

Choose a name for your vlog that will give people a clear idea of the kind of content you’ll cover (bonus points if it includes terms relevant to your topic, like beauty or fashion), and use it as both your profile name and channel title.

Write detailed descriptions in the ‘About Me’ section of your profile and the ‘Description’ section of your channel, both of which include between three to five relevant phrases.

Now comes the exciting bit: making videos! While making a video might seem different to writing a blog post, from an SEO perspective the two processes are actually remarkably similar:

Content is king – if your video isn’t up to scratch, people aren’t going to watch it and it isn’t going to rank. So don’t skimp on the production values, practice your delivery and don’t rush the editing. Read our beginner’s guide to vlogging if you need some more tips on producing high-quality videos.

As with text, longer content tends to rank better than shorter content, so aim to make videos that are at least five minutes long.

SEO for Vloggers: Uploading Your Videos

Once you’re happy with your videos, the next step is to upload them online. This is where following a few tried and true SEO tactics can really make a difference. Why? Because search engines rely on the information you provide at this stage to discover what your videos are about – they can’t watch them for themselves, after all.

Include relevant keywords in your video titles, preferably at the very start.

Write a lengthy video description – aim for at least 250 words – that includes between three and five relevant keywords.

Always add video tags – as many as you like, as long as they’re relevant. These not only provide more information for the search engines, but also make your video more likely to pop up in the ‘related videos’ sidebar of others.

Don’t just use the default thumbnail; instead, pick an appealing image that’s likely to attract more viewers.

Take the time to type up a transcription (or, if your video contains relatively little speech, annotations) to upload alongside your video as a caption file. These will provide the search engines with even more useful information about your video’s content, and as such can give your rankings a considerable boost.

SEO for Vloggers: Promoting Your Vlog

In addition to the textual information you provide, search engines rely on user engagement to determine your videos’ rankings – so the more views, likes, favourites, comments and subscriptions, the better. Here are a few SEO tips you can use to promote your vlog:

Set up social media accounts specifically for your vlog, and use these to promote your videos and interact with your viewers.

Embed your videos onto your blog or website (and encourage others to do so as well).

End each video with a call to action inviting viewers to like, comment and subscribe.

SEO for Vloggers: Curating Your Channel

The journey doesn’t end once you’ve got a steady following. Here are a few SEO tips that vloggers can use to optimise their channel once they’ve published a number of videos.

Make use of the featured content box that appears on your channel’s homepage – use it to promote new videos, to showcase one of your most popular videos, or even to present a video made especially to introduce your channel to new viewers.

Organise your videos into themed playlists. This will not only encourage people to watch more of your videos, but also gives you the chance to give your playlists keyword-rich titles and descriptions that will improve their discoverability.

Use YouTube’s in-built analytics data to develop an understanding of how audiences are responding to your videos, and to guide your future content plan.

We hope this post will help you in your vlogging endeavours. Already got a vlog? We’d love to see it, and to hear any other vlogging SEO tips you might have. Please share in the comments below.

By Kathy Cakebread

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